The Wild Things
by aerodynamics
Summary: <html><head></head>If anybody knew about leaving, it was me.</html>
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer:** I don't own; I borrow with the exception of OCs. I also don't own the quote from the movie "The Wild One."  
><strong>Author's Note: <strong>Flames are welcome. This is not to be taken seriously at all; it's just for shits and giggles. Basically, Dallas has an older sister. Point out mistakes... please? Reviews would be just lovely. Potential chapter fic, ahoy!

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><p><em>Feb. 1964<em>

The fog was rolling up from the river. I flicked the rest of my cigarette off to the side and looked at Janice. She seemed mighty pleased with herself, and it made me roll my eyes, 'cause I hated it when she went on gettin' smug like that. Maybe she had every right to be smug, but it pissed me off, and I guessed it always would.

"Your friend is real dumb, Dallas," she said, and she had her knees pulled up to her chest and the widest, most shit-eating grin of life on her face. "Good-lookin', I'll give him that, but dumb as a goddamned stick."

Her grin widened when I shrugged my good shoulder and grunted, as if that was possible. She knew she was right, and that pissed me off, too, 'cause Janice was right about everything. Must've run in the goddamn family.

"Shut up, Janice," I said. "I thought you was supposed to be older, you know? More mature and all that shit."

"And I thought you was supposed to be smart."

She shifted on the hood of the car, and I cringed. Buck would skin me alive if I brought his car back with the paint chipped. Of course he wouldn't believe that Janice had done it, because Buck had been makin' eyes at her ever since she grew a pair of tits. It was a real riot to watch him try and swindle our phone number out of her, since she could hardly look at the toothless fuck with a straight face. He used to be pretty decent looking, before he got his teeth knocked out, but even I had problems taking him seriously, and I was around him all the goddamn time.

"Don't be a cow," I told her, but I didn't think she heard me, because she went on twirling her hair around her finger and looking at the top of her shoes. "You givin' me a ride home, or what?"

Grabbing my chin in her hand, she forced me to look at her. I was a bit messed up after this fight I'd had with Bobby Huff. Ignorant little shit had the nerve to call me pansy, so I'd made him eat his fucking words, but not before he'd gotten a couple of real good swings in. My jaw hurt like I'd never thought was possible.

"Reckon I have to, don't I?" Janice licked her thumb and tried to scrub off the blood that was dried to the corner of my mouth. "Mom's going to be right ticked off if I bring you home lookin' like this, though."

I knew that wasn't the real reason she wasn't too hot on the idea of going home right then. Mack and Annie had been at it all night. It bugged Janice a lot more than it bugged me, which didn't make a lot of sense to me, 'cause I'd never known anything to bug her. She'd been trying to kill time all night by dragging my ass all over God's half-acre, hoping like maybe if we got home late enough, our mom and dad would've tired themselves out. It was stupid, and I didn't think she knew that, but who in the hell was I to tell her?

She gave my cheek a pat and smirked. "I have a better idea." She paused and looked out at the river. "Let's go to Cosmo's, since I get a discount. You can get some of those nasty fruit-covered waffles, or them oysters you like so much."

Cosmo's Diner was pretty far out. Janice had been working there since she was something like fifteen. I thought the place was fucking disgusting, but if it put money in her pocket, then all the power to her.

"Alright," I sighed, and she held her hand out toward me, palm up, like she was expecting something. "What?"

"Keys, please." She batted her eyelashes at me and smiled.

* * *

><p>Cosmo's was dead. Janice hung her jacket up on the coat hook by the door and slipped into a booth like she owned the fucking place. Some blonde little bimbo of a waitress flounced up to us. She had a great set of tits, and Janice kicked me under the table for staring.<p>

"Can I get you something to drink to start?"

"Coke, please," Janice said, and she gave me a pointed look.

I put my elbows on the table and looked at the waitress. Tiny waist, big lips, long eyelashes—maybe Cosmo's wasn't all that bad. "I'll have a Pepsi." I leaned forward, squinting at her nametag. "_Betty_."

She swallowed and nodded before scurrying away, and I sat back in my seat. Janice had her chin in her palm, staring at me with one of her little filled in eyebrows raised right up.

"You are a real pig," she mumbled. "Poor Betty is probably back there having a heart attack 'cause of you."

"Well ain't that a real shame." I rolled my eyes. "She got a type?"

She widened her eyes at me and snickered, and I knew right then I didn't have a chance in hell of getting under Betty's tight little apron. "Yeah, and it's not you."

"Oh, come on, Jan," I groaned and crossed my legs on the seat. "Quit cock-blocking. It ain't gonna work."

Janice grabbed the menus that were tucked in behind the napkin dispenser and smirked to herself. "And why the hell not?"

"'Cause I'm everybody's type."

She slapped me upside the head with one of the menus and glared at me, and if looks could kill, then I would've been dead about twenty times over. She got all pro-feminism at the worst fucking times.

"You're an idiot," she said, and she tossed a menu at me. "You know why you don't have freckles, Dal?"

It was a weird question. I narrowed my eyes at her and shifted a little bit, trying to decide if I really wanted to know why I didn't have freckles. She bit around at the inside of her mouth, trying not to smile, keeping her eyes right on her goddamn menu while I sat there, trying to figure it out. I knew she was going to have a smartass remark for me; she got off on being an overgrown brat.

"Why, Jan?" I was humouring her. "Why don't I have freckles?"

"Because you're so greasy, they'd slide right off."

Again, she went on gettin' smug and looking mighty pleased with herself. She probably knew how much I hated that look and did it on purpose. She thought she was so goddamn funny, too, but she wasn't. Two-Bit Mathews was funny. But people laughed at her jokes and thought she was a real riot to listen to.

"Yeah, well, guess I can thank Mom and Dad for that one, can't I?"

Her mouth fell open a little bit. Betty came back and placed our drinks down, and I think she could feel the tension, too, 'cause she looked like she wasn't sure if she ought to be taking our order or not.

"Can I get you anything?" She kept her eyes glued to her little notepad.

"No, thanks," Janice said, and she set the menu down at the end of the table for Betty to take.

"I'll have those waffles, with strawberries," I said tightly, glaring at Janice for being so dumb and sensitive. "And I'll have my hashbrowns shredded, thanks."

Betty scribbled something down quickly on that stupid pad of hers, probably a note for the cook to spit in my food or whatever. She grabbed both menus and hurried off with them. Janice didn't look at me at all. She just sat there, picking at her nails like she didn't know what to do with herself. She needed to get over all the bullshit between our mom and dad and realize there wasn't a goddamn thing that we could do about it. But she always had to be the fucking optimist.

"Jan..." I kicked her under the table when she didn't look at me. "Knock it off, Janice."

"Knock what off?" She straightened up and fixed me with one of her looks as she flicked her hair over her shoulder. "Showin' a little goddamn humanity?"

"Oh, what, and I ain't human?"

She set her jaw and folded her arms over her chest, looking off to the side. "Sometimes I wonder."

I tilted my head back and looked up at the ceiling, smirking in something of disbelief. I was plenty human. Janice thought she was the only one that was up most nights, thinking about how in the hell we were going to get out of this fucking mess. Truth was that I thought about it, too, and the more I thought, the more I wanted to get out. The screaming and the fighting and watching our mom get smacked around pissed me off same as it did her. But the thing about Mom was that she was too stubborn to leave, and Janice was just too much of a pushover to try and do anything about it. She'd tried telling our mom to leave, and so had I, but she hadn't listened to a word of it. Her excuse was that she had kids that still needed raising. If she could see us now...

Janice said I was like Mom in a lot of ways. Sure, I had our dad's temper, but I wasn't nothing like him. I couldn't even stand thinking about him most of the time. He was a sick bastard. But I was like Mom. I sure as hell looked like her, had her hair and her eyes, and I was every bit as short as her, too. Janice teased me about it all the time, but I knew she was only sore, 'cause she looked like our dad. And that in itself was about as much punishment as she needed without me yapping back at her.

"Look here, Jan," I said. "You ain't the only one hurtin' over this."

She rolled her eyes. "The hell are you talking about?" She paused, running her tongue along her bottom. "You're just some dumb kid. What the hell do you even know?"

It irked me when people called me dumb. I wasn't dumb and I wasn't a kid. She was two years older than me, and I knew more than she could ever have hoped to. This was why me and her didn't hang around each other much; even though we lived in the same house, had the same parents, and ate at the same kitchen table most mornings, we were estranged.

"You know that one movie, Janice?" I touched her on the hand, and she finally looked at me. "Only movie I reckon we ever sat through together."

"Yeah, I remember..." she trailed off and took a breath. "What of it, huh?"

"You know what that guy said, right? That Johnny guy?" I shrugged my one shoulder, but I knew I had her. Jan loved movies. "You don't go any one place, that's cornball style. You just go."

She wrinkled her brow at me, like I was blowing it out my ass or something. "And?"

"Maybe we oughta just go."

I didn't really know what I was getting at. All I knew was that we both wanted out, and if anybody knew about leaving, it was me. But she looked at me and shook her head as she placed a crumpled up dollar bill on the table.

"You talk a lot of jive, Dallas," she told me. "Enjoy your waffles."


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer: **I don't own; I borrow with the odd exception, and you know what those exceptions are.  
><strong>Author's Note: <strong>Flames are welcome! Again, this isn't supposed to be taken seriously. A very big thanks goes out to alsonny for practically spoon-feeding me a plot for this shit storm. Take it for what it is, ladies and gents.

**XX**

_Feb. 1964_

By the time Janice had cooled off enough to come back into the diner and sit her ass down, Two-Bit had made himself right at home in her seat, with his head down on the table as he muttered to himself. Half of me was wondering how in the hell he'd gotten this far out, but the other half was glad for someone else's company.

Janice had this dumb smile on her face that had me rolling my eyes and sinking down in my seat. She could be embarrassing as hell sometimes, but fuck if I was about to open my big mouth about it. She'd sooner have me swallowing my teeth than letting me talk about her in any way that wasn't positive. Her self-esteem was so fucking low that I was honestly disgusted by it. Maybe all broads were like that, I didn't know. But it pissed me off, especially since she couldn't take a joke to save her pathetic life. She tried to bullshit me into thinking that I was the same way, saying that it ran in the family, same as all our other unpleasant qualities seemed to. The only thing we agreed on was that it was all our dad's fault; he was what we believed to be the root of all fucking evil. Everything that went wrong got blamed on him, which seemed completely fair in my mind.

I watched Janice push Two-Bit over and sit down. The fog was really coming in thick. Looking out the window, I couldn't see into the parking lot. It was a wonder she'd gotten herself and the car back in one piece. She didn't like me driving when the weather got like this. Said I'd run myself right off the road and kill myself, but I knew better. She liked toting me around, 'cause I guess it made her feel needed and gave her an excuse to get the hell out of the house. Truthfully, sometimes I couldn't stand to be around her, just because she looked so much like our dad. Her temper was every bit as bad as his on a good day, and while I knew she wouldn't even dream of doing half the things that our dad had done to me, I couldn't help but be guarded.

It wasn't all the time, mostly just when I got her real ticked off and she started hollerin' at me. She didn't do it all that much; she'd rather talk things out, which was pretty admirable, considering both our parents had a set of lungs on them that they used to their full advantage. And it wasn't like I was scared of Jan, or I didn't think I was, anyways. She wouldn't lay a fucking hand on me, and if she did, I'd have no problem snapping her twiggy little arm in half. It was the resemblance to Mack that got me and that was all.

I pressed my tongue against the inside of my cheek and narrowed my eyes at Janice. "Where the fuck did you go?"

She reluctantly turned her attention toward me. "If I wanted you to know, I'd've brought you with me, don't you think?"

"'Scuse me for bein' concerned," I muttered, mostly to myself, as I stared down at my hands.

She made me feel like a little boy sometimes, and not just because I was her younger brother. There was little to no respect on her end. She treated me as if I was some kind of fucking wild animal that needed to be reminded of who owned it, and I was getting sick and tired of it. If she wasn't ignoring me, which sometimes I thought I preferred, then she was talking down to me and making me feel like I wasn't worth a damn thing.

"That's cute, Dallas," she said, rolling her eyes as she tried to prop Two-Bit up against the window, instead of slumping over on her, like he was trying to do. "Save your concern for someone who wants it."

I fumbled with my pack of smokes as she wiped the drool of his face. He was pretty fucking sauced and kept mumbling about something neither me nor Janice could figure out. The question on both our minds was how in the fuck he'd gotten his drunk ass all the way out to Cosmo's without reeling and passing out in some back alley. Tricks of the trade, he liked to say, as if it were all some big accomplishment that he was proud of.

"Leave him alone, Janice." I lit a smoke and passed the pack off to her. "You ain't his fuckin' mommy. He can wipe the spit off his own face."

She pulled a smoke out of the pack and snatched the lighter from me. "Unlike you, I ain't a lousy friend." She lit her smoke and chucked the lighter at me hard. "I give a hang about somebody other than myself."

That was a bunch of bullshit if I'd ever heard it. She was one of the most selfish people I'd ever had the displeasure of being related to. Every single thing that she did had some kind of a selfish intent behind it. A lot of people got sucked into thinking that she was nice as fucking pie and didn't believe me when I tried to tell them different, which was fine with me. They were only fucking themselves over, and if they wanted to be that ignorant when the truth was being placed right in front of them, then I guessed that they deserved it.

"Where the fuck is the change from that dollar I left here?"

Janice didn't go around dropping the f-bomb very often or get bent out of shape over money. I made a face at her and wondered if something was up that she wasn't telling me. It wouldn't have surprised me none; she was harder to read than books on Greek Mythology. If she didn't tell me what was going on with her, then I would never have any idea, and she liked it that way a lot of the time. Her logic was that if she could pretend that everything was alright for long enough, then sooner or later, she was bound to believe herself.

I reached into my pocket and pulled out what was left of her money. She sighed heavily and muttered something about Betty being a dumb little bitch before shaking her head and telling me to just keep it. Sometimes she was so up and down that I couldn't keep up.

"Sit back and enjoy your cig, Jan," I told her tightly. "You're gonna burn it down to the fucking filter."

"Who cares?" She stuck the smoke between her lips and took a hard drag as she gave Two-Bit a shake. "We oughta get him someplace he can sleep this off, huh?"

That usually meant we were going to end up at Buck's. I nodded and stubbed out what was left of my cigarette in the little ashtray at the end of the table. "Yeah."

**XX**

Everything was grey. Janice looked at me and pressed her lips together tightly as she let the car idle in Buck's driveway.

"It's just fog, Dallas," she told me, trying to find a radio station that came in clear, but I think that she felt it, too. Her eyebrows were pinched together and she looked stiff. "Should we leave him here?"

Two-Bit hadn't lasted five minutes in the back of the car before he'd passed out. I turned around to look at him and scowled. He was a slobbering mess, and I hoped he drowned in his own spit so I wouldn't have to put up with the burden of being his friend. It was times like these that made me question why I put up with him.

"I reckon the car is just as good as any other place," I said and turned back around. "Besides, how in the fuck are we supposed to get him up the stairs?"

She nodded and finally cut the engine. The silence seemed to hit me from all sides, making the hairs on my arms and the back of my neck stand on end all at once. I wasn't claustrophobic, but I felt like the car was starting to condense around me, and the fog was pushing against the glass, trying to get at me. I wiped my hands along my jeans and shot Janice a look.

"Quit buggin' out, would you?" She was fingering through the change in the ashtray. "You're acting like a little girl."

I pushed open the car door and frowned. "Shut the fuck up, Janice."

She snorted as she crawled out of the car slowly and shook her head. "Lock your door behind you, huh?"

There wasn't anything in Buck's car worth stealing, except maybe Two-Bit, but I did what she said and followed her into the roadhouse. It seemed like everybody and their fucking dog was out tonight, and I could just see the disgust on Janice's face. She hated Buck's almost as much as she hated being home, but it was the only place where she could get a stiff drink without anybody trying to give her a hard time about it. And for a lot of us, it was somewhere safe to go at the end of the day. I wasn't stupid or naive; I knew most everyone was shacking up here because they didn't have no place else to go. Buck's was some kind of a goddamn sanctuary.

I sat down at the bar and flagged down Buck. He looked like he was having one hell of a night. Good help was hard for him to find, since he was about as cheap as I reckoned someone could get. I could see his brother milling around at the other side of the bar, but he was as useless as he was stupid.

"Janice here?"

I scratched the back of my neck and sneered at him. "What the fuck is it to you?"

"I've been lookin' for her all week, and she knows that," he told me, but I wasn't really listening.

"Guess that means she's been avoiding you, don't it?" I said, lighting myself a smoke. "Get me a rum and coke, instead of standin' there like an idiot."

He was looking for Janice because there was some rodeo coming up. She had been riding his ponies for the last few years and hadn't lost a single race. That was the only reason he put up with her being arrogant and dropping off the face of the earth every time one came up. She liked to save all of the planning until the very last minute, and it was causing his hair to turn grey prematurely. I remembered there being times when she had to pack up and ship out the night before or the day of a race. She said that the more she had to plan it out the less interest she had in it.

I tapped my ashes off to the side as she sat down beside me. It seemed like I couldn't go anywhere or do anything without her being right there. She leaned into me a bit and put a hand on my shoulder, watching Buck.

"He say anything?"

"Just that he's been lookin' for your ass for damn near a week now," I told her, shrugging her off. "But you knew that."

She laughed to herself and nodded. "It's about that time, ain't it?"

"Yeup." I handed my smoke off to her. "Better bust out them spurs and make Buck his fuckin' money."

She grinned, and the smoke filtered through her teeth and out her nose. "So long as he doesn't smile, we'll be fine."

Buck came back with my drink and grumbled something that got lost in all the noise when he saw Janice.

"Remind me again why I put up with you." He slammed a beer down in front of her. "And don't bat your lashes at me and tell me it's 'cause you're pretty."

"Well, then I really ain't got no idea." She capped her beer on the bar and rubbed her nose on her sleeve.

I could tell she wasn't in the mood to deal with his bullshit, and neither was I. All three of us knew how this was going to end, so everything leading up to it was pretty fucking pointless. But I sat there and sipped on my drink, figuring it best to let them get their shit sorted out before someone's head got taken off.

Buck sucked his tongue over his teeth and leaned against the bar. "If you weren't an asset to my business, Janice, I'd have absolutely no tolerance for this."

"But here's the thing." She put her beer down and clasped her hands together in front of her. "I am an asset, and I know this. And I also know that I can get away with anything and everything, simply because you need me."

She fixed him with a cheesy grin and patted his arm. If anybody knew how to play the game of manipulation, it was her. Sometimes I hated her for how easy she made it look. She could con our mom and dad into just about anything, which was really saying something. I used to think it was favouritism, but I learned pretty damn quickly that if I said the right things, I could get just about anything I wanted out of just about anybody.

I nudged Janice lightly. "Just ask him when your goddamn rodeo is, so I ain't gotta look at his ugly mug no more."

She glowered at me, but did what I told her, for once in her life. "When's my rodeo, Buck-O?"

"Tomorrow mornin'," he said.

"You ain't kiddin'?" She scratched at her cheek. "Who's bringin' coffee?"

Buck rolled his eyes dismissively and left to go help someone else. I bit down on my lip, figuring my best bet was to go with Janice in the morning. She wouldn't like it, but fuck if I was about to spend the day sitting around with my thumb up my ass. Two-Bit would be nursing one hell of a hangover, and I wasn't going home alone. I knew the Curtises wouldn't be up to much of anything, but I didn't feel like bumming around their house and taking up space.

I slipped off my stool, drink in hand, and tugged at Jan's sleeve. She sighed and trailed me up the stairs, running her fingers along the walls as she hummed the tune to the song that was reverberating through the entire house.

"You got the key, Jan?" I asked as I patted down my pockets with my free hand.

She yawned and waggled it in front of my face, before she unlocked the door and pushed her way inside. "Can I borrow some sweatpants?"

I finished off my drink and pointed over at the closet. "I think I'm gonna come with you and Buck tomorrow morning."

"Over my dead body," she said, rolling her shoulders. "Now go get cleaned up before bed."

She threw some clean clothes at me and nodded her head toward the bathroom. I didn't want to shower or brush my teeth; it was late and my head hurt. But I knew I'd feel every bump and bruise in the morning if I didn't. I closed the window and the blinds, hoping like hell the fog let up by the time I had to be up. Fog usually meant storms. There wasn't anything I hated more.

"I'm coming with y'all tomorrow." I threw the clothes on the dresser and flopped down on the bed. "There ain't no way in hell I'm goin' home or bummin' around anywhere."

"Nobody said you had to do either of those things," she told me, pulling on a pair of sweats. "Get your boots off the damn bed."

I groaned and tried to make an attempt at kicking them off. She got sick of watching me struggle and came around the bed to pull them off, and the look on her face was priceless.

"Here, Princess," she jeered, holding them out towards me. "Do somethin' with those."

I smacked them out of her hands. "Consider something done."

She crawled into bed as I lit up my last smoke and placed the ashtray from the nightstand between us. The rain started then, just a light tapping on the roof to let us know that it was there. It was going to get worse. Jan knew this just as well as I did, and she unfolded the blanket from the edge of the bed before throwing it over me.

"Light or telly tonight, Dal?" she asked.

"The light's fine, Jan," I said and handed her my smoke.

She took it and looked at me a minute. "If you're up early and swear on Ma's grave you ain't gonna get in mine or Buck's way, I'll let you come tomorrow."

"Just when in the fuck have I ever got in your way?"

She cocked her head and raised her eyebrows at me as she took a drag and passed my smoke back to. "Just keep your mouth shut and pretend like you ain't there."

I had to roll my eyes, because how many times had I heard that in my life? Be seen and not heard. I had the routine down to a fucking T by now. It was the only reason I'd survived this long, living in the same house as our dad.

"You should teach me somethin' tomorrow, Jan," I said quietly, staring at the ceiling.

"Goodnight, Dallas." She yawned and rolled over. "Love you."

"Yeah."

I stubbed out the last half of my smoke, put the ashtray back on the nightstand, and pulled the blanket up under my chin. Sometimes I wasn't sure if I loved her back. Nobody could deny that she did one hell of a lot for me, but I had to wonder if it was because she wanted to, or if it was because she felt like she was under some kind of an obligation. I hated to think that I was what was holding her back from going off and doing something with her life.

So it was there in the room that I rented from Buck that I decided it was time I distanced myself from Janice. That way if she did leave, like most people seemed to, it wouldn't hurt so bad.

**XX**

**PS: **Reviews would be lovely. ;)


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaim: **I don't own; I borrow with the odd exception.  
><strong>Author's Note: <strong>Flames are welcome. Thanks to Cheap Indifference and alsonny, as always.

* * *

><p><em>Feb. 1964<em>

Bobby Huff was a red-haired fuck who was neither smart nor threatening. I eyed him coolly from where I was leaning up against one of the beams in the stable, waiting for Janice to get her horse tacked up. Fritter didn't much like people poking and prodding at him and put up a real fight whenever Jan tried to get the bit inside his mouth. But he was her horse, since nobody else would or could get within twenty feet of him. She didn't have too many problems with him; he was probably the only living thing she showed any sort of decency toward.

"Come back to get the rest of your fuckin' teeth knocked out, Huff?" I asked, looking up into the rafters.

He was sweating. "Tim sent me for you."

I sighed and looked over at one of the empty stalls. "The fuck does he want?"

"Didn't say," he said, cramming his hands into his pockets. "Reckon he wants to see you. That's what I gather, anyways."

Tim was a meticulous sonuvabitch. I couldn't understand why he'd send someone like Bobby to come get me. Idiots like him got killed, and Tim knew that better than anybody else.

"Did you rat me out, Bobby?" I narrowed my eyes and shifted against the beam as I puffed out my jacket. "Did you tell Timmy I beat your ugly fuckin' face in?"

He flapped his mouth a few times and wiped the sweat off his forehead when he couldn't think of anything to say. I didn't understand how guys like him fit into something like the Shepard gang. They were too fucking stupid to be very useful, and I didn't think someone like Tim needed a water boy. Back in New York, Bobby wouldn't have made it past the ripe old age of eight. The boys I ran with would've eaten him alive—boys like Lindsay and Archie, who would sooner skin Bobby Huff than let him breathe the same air as them.

Thinking about it made me homesick. I scratched my jaw and gave him a bored look. There was nothing that made my stomach turn quite like some candy-ass little bitch trying to prove he was tough shit. But something about this didn't add up. Tim was smarter than this; he'd come to me himself, if he was really that sore over me shit-kicking one of his guys.

"When I see Tim, it'll be on my own terms," I said, pushing myself away from the beam. "And you can tell him that."

He swallowed and stepped back, his eyes shifting the whole time, like he was trying to find the quickest way out, because he knew he'd been caught. "Yeah, alright."

"Alright?" I snorted and rolled my eyes. "For someone with such a big fuckin' mouth, you sure ain't got much to say."

He looked like he wanted to spit on me, or wring my neck, but he turned around hurriedly and started back the way he came. I knew that slimy little bastard had something up his sleeve, and as much as I would've loved to have cut it out of him, I wasn't sure I wanted him dead yet.

"You must be in some kind of trouble."

I wrinkled my nose and nodded as Janice handed me Fritter's rope. "Must be."

She sighed loudly as she rooted through her duffel bag. "I'm going to tell you the same thing I tell you every time, Dallas." She scowled and pushed her hair back. "Stay out of it."

"I'd be as lucky," I muttered, scratching Fritter's nose when he pushed up against me. "I reckon all he wants is a good skin fight, ain't that right, Fritter?"

"It's never just a skin fight," she said, zipping up her bag. She looked around as she tied her hair back. "All it takes is someone pullin' a heater or a chain on you, and you're done."

She had a point, but sometimes I wondered if she thought we were still living in the heart of New York's ghetto. Things here weren't nearly as wild as they were there, and I missed it. And even if they were, I wasn't dumb enough to get myself caught up in something I thought I couldn't handle. But a skin fight wasn't anything to sweat about; I could've won blindfolded with both hands tied behind my back.

"I don't even know if that's what he wants, Jan," I told her, leaning against the horse. He started chewing at the collar of my jacket, and I let him. "He could want somethin' completely different."

"Like what, a tea party?" She looked down at my boots and grimaced. "Get real, Dallas. Do you know if I grabbed my boots?"

"I told you to make sure you had all of your shit before we left the house," I told her impatiently. "You're the most disorganized person I know."

She shrugged and eyed my boots as if it wasn't a big deal. "It runs in the family."

That seemed to be her excuse for everything.

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><p>The breeze coming in was warm and the sky was blue. I shielded my eyes against the sun and watched Janice yammering away with her friends. She'd won her race, which was expected, and she wanted to swing by the house so we could check on our mom. I hated to admit it, especially to myself, but there was part of me that wasn't sure if I could handle seeing her right then.<p>

It had a lot to do with guilt and feeling like a selfish prick for leaving her on her own last night. I knew it would have been easy to blame Janice and say that it was her fault for not wanting to go home, but I'd had a choice and could've said no. It was my fault just as much as it was hers, or maybe even more, because I wasn't supposed to pull the same kind of bullshit that she did. Our mom had spent the last fifteen years trying to keep my ass safe—it was about time I did the same for her, even if I didn't really know how.

I jammed my hands into my pockets and scuffed at the ground. The heat was making me antsy, but Janice didn't seem to care; she was absorbed in whatever the hell she was talking about, which was probably herself. She took being conceited to a whole different level. Everything always had to be about her, and sometimes I felt like I enabled her. And I knew that if I said anything about it, she'd give me some spiel about how I wasn't any better, because _it ran in the family. _That excuse was starting to drive me up the fucking wall; I wasn't anything like her, and I didn't want to be.

Wiggling my toes in my shoes, I scowled at the ground. She had yet to give me back my boots, and I wasn't counting on her remembering or getting her shit together any time soon.

Instead of standing around like an idiot, I figured I'd find Buck. Since he saw all sorts of unfortunate bastards almost every night, if anybody knew about Bobby Huff, it would be him. I doubted Tim had a whole lot to do with this. Bobby Huff had an agenda, and I was on it.

There was an office around the back of the stables, and that was most likely where I'd find Buck. He didn't tend to socialize with any of the riders that came in for these rodeos. I remembered his granddaddy being the same way, back when he was alive, and since Buck never had much of a father figure besides Amos Merrill, it seemed right that they were one in the same.

I'd met Amos only a handful of times last summer, before he died. He had one of those stereotypically thick down-south accents that made me feel displaced, and he'd kept looking at me like I was some kind of alien enemy every time I opened my mouth. Besides being a recluse and having a very strong distaste for the North, I didn't know one hell of a lot about him. Buck said it was better that way, and I didn't ask questions. They both liked keeping their personal life personal, which I respected. It was easier keeping people at an arm's length that way.

"Hey, Buck," I said, stepping into the office. It was stuffy and reeked like sweat and horse feed. "You got a minute?"

He wiped the sweat off his forehead and nodded. "Go on an' siddown."

I licked my lips and sat in the plastic chair on the other side of his desk as he tucked a stack of papers into a drawer. "I was hopin' you could tell me somethin' about that Bobby Huff character."

"What about him?" Buck asked, narrowing his eyes. "There ain't much to know..."

"I believe it," I said, kicking my feet up on the desk. "All I know is that he's one of Shepard's boys, and he's dumber than a fucking stick."

"About sums that up." He pushed his hair back and slid his tongue through the gap in his teeth. "I don't see him around much, unless he's with one of Tim's guys."

It was always the fucking quiet ones. I hung my head over the back of the chair and stared at the ceiling. Sometimes I had to wonder if I'd ever catch a break. If I wasn't trying to figure out the shit at home, or keeping up with Janice and her bullshit, then I had some little puke breathing down my neck. But that was life, and if nothing else, it reminded me that I was still alive.

"Do me a favour, huh?" I looked out through the window and fiddled with the zipper on my jacket. "Lemme know if you hear anything."

He gave me an incredulous look. "Like what?"

"You'll know it when you hear it," I told him, looking down at my hands.

I had to cover my ass in case something happened, and there wasn't anybody I would've wanted backing me up besides Buck. He wasn't anywhere near as dumb as a lot of people thought he was. Anyone who could run a roadhouse, manage a bunch of underage kids, and fix races nation-wide had to have some kind of brains behind them. Buck didn't get enough credit for the things he did, and I was just as bad as everyone else for it.

He rubbed his face and knit his eyebrows together. "You ain't in no kinda trouble, are ya?"

"I couldn't tell you." I shrugged and let out a heavy sigh. "Wouldn't surprise me none."

"Well, if you need anythin' else, make sure you lemme know."

Taking my feet off his desk, I knew that when he said anything, he meant it. Buck was good for his word when he had to be, and sometimes I didn't like how much I trusted him. I knew he was a lying sonuvawhore, but I'd never doubted his credibility, which would come back to bite me in the ass one of these days the way it always did.

"Take it easy, man," I said, giving him a grin. "I'll catch up with you later."

He nodded as Janice stuck her head into the office and looked at me.

"Do you have the keys to the car?" she asked, and she gave Buck a small wave.

I rolled my eyes and shoved her out the door. "If your head wasn't attached to your body, Janice, you'd fuckin' lose that, too."

She smiled at me as if she thought it was funny. "Negative Nancy is at it again."

"I'm not in the mood for this." I really didn't want to admit it, but Bobby's little confrontation had me on edge. "Let's just get our asses home, alright? I got shit I need to take care of."

She swung her arm across my shoulders and leaned her head on top of mine. "I'm sure Tim can get Bobby off your ass, if you ask him real nicely."

"Shut the fuck up, Janice," I grumbled, elbowing her in the side. "Tim ain't got a fuckin' thing to do with this."

That seemed to sober her up some. She yanked on my arm and planted her feet, giving me a firm look as she pulled me around to face her. "So you are in some real trouble, huh?"

I shrugged and looked off to the side. There was this feeling in my stomach that the hairs on the back of my neck and my arms standing on end, and I think she saw it. Janice was the only person I couldn't keep anything from. I'd stopped trying at an early age.

"I wouldn't worry about it," I told her, digging the toe of my shoe into the dirt. "I always come out on top, don't I?"

She grabbed my chin in her hand and forced me to look at her. "One of these days, your luck is gonna run out, you know that?" She dug her fingers into my jaw, trying to get her point across. "And you know what happens when you stop being lucky, Dallas? You end up dead."

She let my face go roughly and shook her head, looking about as disgusted as I reckoned I'd ever seen her.

"I ain't dumb, Janice," I spat, and I wanted to slug that look off her face. "Don't fuckin' stand there and act like you're the only one rattled over this. It ain't got shit to do with you."

"I never said you was dumb." Her voice was so low and unsteady that I could hardly hear her. "But you're my kid brother, so it has everything to do with me."

I swallowed and rubbed my jaw. There were little imprints of her nails in the skin, and she was lucky I didn't backhand her the way I wanted to right then.

"Let's just go, Janice," I said, turning on my heel. I felt her slip her arm over my shoulders again, and from the corner of my eye, I saw her grinning as we walked toward the car.

"This weekend, let's have an old-fashioned, down-south cookout." She gave me a sideways look. "Invite all of your hoodlum little friends."

I rubbed my nose and narrowed my eyes. "And who do you expect is gonna do the cookin'?"

"You."

"Stop talking, Janice." I was nearly begging her. "Do you hear yourself, or is it that you just really like the sound of your own voice?"

She gave me a shove as we came up to the car. "Give me the keys so we can get out of here."

Digging into my pocket for the keys, I was hoping she'd take me any place that wasn't home. The last thing I needed right then was to look at our mom and know that everything she went through was because of me and Janice.

Sometimes I wondered how Janice slept at night.

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><p><strong>PS: <strong>Reviews would be just lovely. ;)


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer: **I don't own; I borrow with the odd exception.  
><strong>Author's Note: <strong>Flames are welcome. Here's to taking a decade to update. Dotty and Jane both belong to Cheap Indifference. I would also like to thank this lovely lady and everybody else who helped me out here. Point out any mistakes, and as always, reviews would be just lovely!

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><p><em>Feb. 1964<em>

There weren't many things I couldn't handle. Seeing my mom with a black eye was one of them. I didn't know what kind of man put his hands on a woman like that, especially one he was supposed to love. But love had never really been the reason our parents had gotten married.

"Dotty invited us for dinner," my mom was saying as she leaned into the bathroom mirror, trying to conceal her black eye with some of Janice's cover-up. "She wants to know if there's anything special you and Jan want."

I folded my arms over my chest and shook my head as I leaned against the doorframe. "Whatever Mrs. Mathews is cooking is fine, Ma."

The last thing on my mind right then was eating. I was too disgusted to want to sit down with the Mathewses and be surrounded by all their pointless yammering when there were more important things that needed my attention. But around here, you didn't refuse someone's hospitality, because Lord only knew when they'd offer it again. Mrs. Mathews worked two jobs and had a hard enough time keeping food on the table for herself and her two kids, let alone another three mouths. It was admirable, her wanting to lend a hand and save my mom the trouble of cooking for a night, but it was stupid. I knew how tight things were at their place; Two-Bit and I talked about it sometimes.

He and his sister were holding up pretty well, from what he said, but he was worried. Their dad handn't left them with so much as a pot to piss in, and Two-Bit wasn't stupid. He knew the cost of living was high and that it was expensive trying to keep two kids clothed and fed, and that there wasn't any way his mom made enough to pay the bills and make the rent every month. But Dotty was a prideful woman and would sooner pick up another job than ask for help. If pride really was a sin, then both her and my mom—and probably every other person on our side of town—were going to hell. I just hoped whoever got there first saved me a seat.

Janice came up behind me and put a hand on my shoulder, which reeled me back into reality. She gave our mom one of those stupid grins of hers, and I about told her to fuck right off. There was absolutely nothing she needed to be happy about, and if she thought any of this was even remotely comical, or tried to make of light of the cluster fuck of a situation that she caused, I was going to lose it on her.

"Does it hurt very much?" she asked, motioning to her eye.

She was so obnoxious and callous sometimes that it made me question the existence of this supposed thing called humanity she was always talking about, and whether or not she really knew the meaning of it, the way she always fucking claimed to. I gave her a hard look and had to remind myself that this was her way of coping. She wasn't like me and our mom. When things got hard, she tucked tail and ran, and that was why she took off all the time. She was selfish and had no consideration for anybody other than herself. The contempt I held for her right then reached what I would swear to was an all time high.

"Did Mom tell you?" I asked, finally shrugging her off. "Dotty invited us for dinner."

She beamed at me. "That was awful nice of her."

"I'll say." I gave her a pointed look. "Try not to fuck it up this time, huh? I happen to like these people."

Janice swatted me in the chest and scoffed. "If anyone is going to mess anything up, Dallas, it's you." She winked at me and ruffled my hair. "You have the mannerisms of a _savage_."

I flicked Janice in the arm and smirked. "Go ahead and be jealous, Jan," I said. "But you know they like me better."

"Yeah, maybe when pigs fly."

Our mom smiled widely and glanced at us through the bathroom mirror. "You already have wings, sweetheart," she said.

Sometimes my mom was even worse for trying to make light of a situation. But I had to humor her, and I laughed the way I figured she was hoping I would. In all honesty, it was too weird standing there and watching our mom try to pretend like everything was okay. As much as she tried, she couldn't even fool herself, let alone the people around her. Her attempt at saving face was commendable, but it irritated me how she thought she had to hide things and do everything herself. I wanted her to know that it was alright to ask for help; nobody would think any less of her. But she always said it wasn't anybody's burden to bear but her own. I had to agree with her there, even though I knew there were a few people who were willing to bend over backwards for her if she needed them to.

Dotty was one of those people. I remembered taking refuge at her house a lot of nights, when my mom and dad were at their worst, and I always remembered thinking how lucky Jane and Two-Bit were to have her.

My mom turned around then and gave both me and Jan a hopeful look. "Well?"

I grimaced and tilted her face toward the light, shaking my head. "Still too swollen."

She sighed and swept her hair back without saying anything. There were some things that couldn't be covered up. I'd heard from someone that it was the emotional abuse that was hardest to hide and took the greatest toll, and looking at my mom right then, I knew it was true. I wanted to tell her how sorry I was for leaving her on her own the other night, but I didn't think she'd want to hear it, but it wouldn't actually fix anything or undo any of what had happened. Words never fixed a goddamned thing, and sorry was just that—a word that got thrown around too much to mean anything. I wanted her to stop hurting and finally be okay, because she hadn't been in so long. None of us had.

I cleared my throat and scowled when Janice looped her arm through mine. She seemed stiff and uncomfortable suddenly, like she knew what I was thinking. It irked me how she could get into my head so easy; I couldn't keep anything from her and my thoughts weren't my own.

"When is Dad coming home?" she asked, and our mom bristled visibly, her eyes turning into two dark buttons.

"Later," was all she said, shooing us out of the bathroom.

As she locked the door, I felt something unsettling creep into the house.

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><p>Dotty was all smiles when we showed up. There were the standard how-do-you-dos and the murmurings about the weather, but I could tell my mom felt at home here. Mrs. Mathews always told us that when we entered her house, our problems were left at the door.<p>

But mine stuck to me like flypaper that night. Even though I tried to focus on other things and not lose myself in my own little world, the nagging at the back of my mind that something somewhere was going to go wrong made it impossible. Janice kept throwing me these careful looks every so often, in what I assumed was her way of making sure I was still functioning behind the stupor. Things were moving around me, but I couldn't keep up.

"Christ almighty, Dallas, aren't you getting tall?" Dotty said, while we were in the kitchen. It took me a second to collect myself and realize that she was talking to me, and I nearly forgot why I was there in the first place. She looked at my mom and motioned at me with an empty glass. "What are you feeding this kid, Anais?"

Anais. I hadn't heard anybody call my mom that in a real long time. She was Annie to most people, except her mom and dad.

"Beats me," she said, taking the glass from Dotty and handing it to me. I was supposed to be helping set the table, but I needed some air and a smoke. "He needs to start putting on some weight. Nothing I feed him seems to make a difference."

"I don't know what the hell y'all are on about." I opened the back door and spotted Two-Bit over by the gate with his sister, finishing off his cig. He was looking like he hadn't quite recovered from the other night. "Just 'cause you ain't nothin' but a couple of old, fat hags…"

I meant it just joking. Dotty gave me a light cuff upside the head, but she was grinning just the same.

"Get those kids of mine in here," she told me, holding open the screen door as I started across the yard. "Dinner's near ready."

I waited until she had disappeared back into the kitchen before lighting my smoke. It wasn't that she didn't know I smoked, I just didn't like her watching me, because I thought maybe it'd make my mom look bad or something.

Two-Bit nodded at me as I made my way over to them. The air was cool against my skin, and I shivered, looking at the sky. Dark clouds were rolling in, and that meant one thing—a storm.

"Good to see you made your way home."

He grinned and crushed his cig under his boot. "Yeah, and it wasn't no thanks to you."

Jane snorted at the both of us and shook her head. I think she thought we had a couple screws loose at times, and I blamed that on hanging around Two-Bit too much for my own good.

"At least they had the decency to let you sleep it off at Buck's and not with the rats," she told him as I offered her one of my smokes. "Even though that's kinda where you belong..."

He grabbed at my pack of Kools and rolled his eyes at her. "How can you say that when you're the one who looks like a rat?" He dug through his pockets and pulled out his lighter. "Shoot, Janey, you'd fit right in with 'em."

I scratched the back of my head and took a long drag off my smoke, hoping like fucking hell they didn't decide to stand here and try and duke it out. They must've known my patience was wearing thin; that seemed to be the only time they really went at it. Jan and I weren't much better, and I was silently grateful she was still in the house. There was no way I'd be able to handle all three of them at once.

"Hey," I cut in quickly, tapping my ashes off to the side. "You ain't gonna guess who I ran into today."

"Your better half?" Two-Bit winked at me. "I knew there was somethin' goin' on between you and Tim…"

Jane smacked him in the chest and narrowed her eyes at him. "Let the guy finish," she said hotly. "Not everyone likes the sound of your voice, you know."

I pinched the bridge of my nose and took a few deep breaths. She was right—sometimes I couldn't stand the sound of Two-Bit's voice. He never let anybody get a word in but himself.

"Bobby Huff." I had to try and talk over them, but once they heard, they both went quiet, which was a first. "Slimy fuck's got somethin' up his sleeve."

Two-Bit got real serious all of the sudden. He gave me an even look and pointed at me. "Be careful, Dal," he said, because he knew that sometimes my curiosity got me into shit. "I know I ain't gotta tell you twice."

"Yeah, don't worry about it."

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><p>Dinner started and ended without anything out of the normal. Two-Bit cringed when he saw my mom's face, and Jane kept her hand on my knee the whole time we were sitting at the table. She knew I was all wound up, and most days, I thought she was the only person who understood what was going on in my head.<p>

Two-Bit and my mom were in the middle of some conversation that I was only half listening to.

"I don't say dirty things about you, Anais," he was saying, leaning up beside her while she was washing dishes. "Steve, on the other hand…"

I put my head in my hands. It wasn't any secret that Two-Bit had it hard up for my mom, and I think even she knew.

"I'm sure." She handed him a plate to dry, half smiling, rolling her eyes.

"Well, unless you count talkin' about how good-looking you are something dirty…" he trailed off, smirking to himself as he put the plate away. "Then yes, I say _real _dirty things about you."

Janice cleared her throat a little too loudly, coming in with Dotty through the back door. "Quit hitting on my mom. We could hear you clean across the yard, Two-Bit," she told him, but she was looking in my direction. "How about we go to the drive-in tonight? My treat, since none of you other bums work."

Dotty patted Janice on the back. "Yeah, get out of our hair for a while."

Sighing, I hung my head over the back of my chair and felt Jane squeeze my shoulder. It was going to be a long night.


	5. Chapter 5

**Disclaimer: **I don't own; I borrow with the odd exceptions.  
><strong>AN: **Flames are welcome. Sorry for how ridiculously long it took to update. Of course I would like to thank Cheap Indifference and everybody else who helped me through this chapter. See mistakes? That's great. Point them out. Reviews would be lovely, as per usual.

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><p><em>Feb. 1964<em>

The worst thing about Janice getting sick of me was that I should have seen it coming. I couldn't stand her any more than she could stand me. But she'd given me reason. She was selfish and whiny and had to make everything about her, because in her narrow-minded version of the world, there wasn't room for anybody else. She acted as if she was doing everybody one giant favor simply by breathing; and it was all about what the world could offer Janice fucking Annalisse.

At least the weather was holding out well enough. I looked up at the chain link fence and wasn't surprised she was the reason seven feet of wrought iron stood between me and a nice warm car. It seemed a little ass-backwards, if you asked me. If she was any sort of a sister, she'd be in my face with a last of all the reason I shouldn't run around breaking laws. The only useful sort of advice she'd ever given me was don't get caught, as if I really gave a flying fuck. It was the morale of it all, the very basic principle in that she was a detriment to me and any chance I had of coming out of this inconvenient little thing I called life alright.

Two-Bit handed his smoke off to me. It was my last one.

"Your sister's got a part missing, don't she?" he asked, leaning up against the fence and knowing I wasn't in a hurry to get back to the car.

"Gets it from our dad," I told him and paused long enough to take a drag. "They're both fucking batshit."

He kind of hummed from somewhere in his throat, as if he understood that it was cause for concern, while I flicked the end of the cig off into the grass. Our dad's side of the family wasn't exactly what I liked to call mentally fit. I had a cousin on his side that needed to be put away. She wasn't a functionable person, and I almost felt bad for her. Jo hadn't been too bad when we were younger, but now she was a threat to anybody unfortunate enough to be within ten yards of her, somebody who shouldn't have been allowed out of the house on her own. My mom hadn't let me or Jan near my dad's side in years, probably because she was afraid some of the crazy had slipped into our gene pool, or maybe it was that she knew.

It explained why Janice acted the way she did. I guessed when compared to our cousin, she wasn't all that bad yet, but hell if she wasn't on her way. Sometimes I still saw Jo. She lived out in Windrixville, and I was willing to bet that was where Janice took off to whenever she picked up and left. I could only handle Jo so much and be around her for so long, otherwise she started playing the kind of head games that made me realize there was something not quite right with myself either. She reminded me that I was Mack's kid and took after him in more ways than I though. Or maybe, like my mom, I knew but refused to acknowledge it; and maybe Janice wasn't completely blowing it out her ass when she tried to blame things on _running in the family._

Two-Bit shouldered me and nodded a hole in the bottom of the fence like it was the eighth wonder of the world or something. "Reckon we can fit through that?" He peeled some of the fencing back and shot me a look, his nose wrinkled. "Or maybe just you…"

I snickered at him and crouched down in to the dirt. It was damp and smelled like rain. "Lay off the goddamn cake then," I said, squeezing my way through the opening. "You're gettin' soft around the middle."

"The ladies love it," he told me, giving me this ear-to-ear grin as I stood up.

"Ladies?"

"Kathy," he corrected himself, not looking the least bit guilty. "Kathy loves it, and so does your mom."

I stopped brushing the dirt off myself and narrowed my eyes at him. "Bring your ass over here and say that again."

He looped his fingers though the chain link and leaned forward, using it to hold himself up. The smile he had on his face made my spine crawl. "Oh yeah?" he challenged. "And what?"

"Just see what happens."

He made this _tsk_ing sound through his teeth and shook his head as if he expected more from me. "That all you got?"

"It's all I need."

"You know…" he trailed off and rattled the fence. "Maybe I oughta start talkin' about your sister, then."

"You wanna talk sisters, Two-Bit?" I smacked the fence against his face and laughed. "The things I would _do _to Jane…"

He rubbed his nose and made a face. "Alright, fair enough." He was still fucking smiling. "But I'd still kill to get under your mom's skirt, or even just cop a feel…"

"Fuck you."

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><p>Janice parked in a real lousy spot. She handed me the keys and a beer and settled back against the front of the car. James Dean was on the screen, and I knew she was crazy about him, even though he'd been dead for nine years. She'd made me watch that Rebel Without A Cause movie about a hundred times and always cried at the end, even though she knew what was coming. I didn't think he was the best actor in the world, but then, what the hell did I really know about movies? They were Janice's thing; I couldn't sit still long enough to see one through to the end.<p>

Steve passed his smoke off to Janice and took a sip of his beer, watching a Mustang pull into a slot. I didn't know why the hell he was here. He and Soda were supposed to be on some double-date, but I didn't see hear or tails of Soda or the girls.

"If I see one more fuckin' Mustang or Corvair pull in, I swear to God…" He wiped his mouth on his sleeve and hucked his bottle off over his shoulder. "Ain't they got their own goddamned drive-in?"

"'Course they do, but that's what you get with these fuckin' in-between places." I scratched my jaw and twirled the key ring around my finger. "Where's that broad of yours, huh? She finally run out on you?"

"Shit, that'll be the day." He laughed as if he really didn't think it could ever happen. "Soda and Sandy ain't been seein' eye-to-eye lately and thought it best to cool it for a bit. Soda went off with Jane to get popcorn or whatever."

That was the problem with people who knew they were good-looking, like Soda and his broad Sandy. That was about all they could ever agree on, their looks, and didn't care about the rest.

Two-Bit shoved me over and snatched the beer out of my hands. "Tell Stevie what happened in gym last Friday, man." He shook my beer and handed it back as if he really expected me to just go on and open it.

"You know that Adderson kid?" I asked, wanting to crack him over the head with the bottle. "Dad's got some real big name in oil…"

Steve snickered. "Yeah, what of him?"

"Guy's a queer if I ever saw one," I said, watching him screw his face up and knowing he'd already heard enough.

Janice wrinkled her nose and laughed as if it was particularly funny. "Ew." She licked her lips and looked around. "Christ, I hope somebody heard that. Wouldn't that be something?"

I shrugged and rubbed my face, not caring what it was or what it wasn't. The asshole deserved everything he got and worse, queerness aside. Him and that friend of his, Bob what's-his-fuck, were a couple of real pricks that needed to have their skulls bashed in.

"What the hell's that gotta do with gym class?" Steve asked, looking at me weird.

"Forget it."

"Forget it?" Two-Bit gawked at me and thumbed at his nose. "Caught him lookin' at Dal like he wanted to fuckin'…" he trailed off and rethought what he was about to say. "Anyways, I would've beat the goddamn faggot out of him."

"So what stopped you?" Jane had her arms full with a tub of popcorn and a few drinks, and she handed me one as she cocked an eyebrow at her brother. "I can't believe you're still on about that—it was over a week ago."

He snatched the popcorn from her and grinned. "You know how that shit's contagious, Jane," he said, and walked around to the back of the car. He pulled out a beer for Soda and tossed it to him. "How in God's name do you expect me to get Dal's mom in bed if I turn into a queer?"

Jane snorted at him and rolled her eyes, sitting beside me. She reached into the tub when Two-Bit came back around and cradled a handful against her stomach that she let me pick at. "Annie has standards," she snapped back. "And I didn't buy that for you to fill your own gob with, Two-Bit, so share."

"I'm pretty sure you can't just turn into a queer," Janice said and looked over at me like I was supposed to know all about it. "It's not like the flu—you're not going to catch it, just because you touched the same doorknob as one."

"You're gonna get killed talkin' like that." I snatched the bucket from Two-Bit and sighed. "It's a fuckin' disease, Janice, same as tuberculosis and polio, except it's in the brain."

Janice crammed her hand into the popcorn and gave me this know-it-all look she always did whenever she was about to make me eat my words. "Riddle me this, then, smart-ass." She stopped to stuff her face and dig out a cig. "You ever known a _brain _disease to be contagious?"

"Well, you caught it from somebody, didn't you?"

She cuffed me upside the head and offered me a smoke. "You know what I always say." She smiled. "Runs in the family."

There was that excuse again. I clutched the keys in my hand and let the metal cut into my palm, wondering if she threw it around just to be saying something, or if she really did think that everything that was wrong with her ran in the family. If that was the case, then I should've been every bit as screwed up as she was. I knew I had my issues, same as everyone else, but they were nowhere near as bad as hers. For as much as I hated her, she had to know she wasn't completely alone in the world. Above everything else, she was my sister, and family didn't turn their noses at family, no matter what was wrong with them. They were all you came into the world with, and in the end, they were all you left with. Friends came and friends went; family and death were the only two sure things in life.

I didn't expect Janice's thinking to be anywhere near the same lines as mine. She looked out for herself and expected everyone to do the same. If she didn't need nobody, then nobody needed her, and that was the way she liked it, which was probably the biggest bunch of bullshit I'd ever heard.

"Anybody got a light?" I asked, letting the smoke dangle from my mouth.

Steve flicked his lighter open for me. "You want real entertainment, you should hear what Soda's got to say about your mom." He smacked Soda in the chest with this dopey grin on his face like he thought whatever Soda had to say was either going to be genuinely funny, or genuinely piss me off.

"She's a real fine piece of ass, Dal," Soda told me, and he gave me look like I was supposed to agree with him. I wanted to wipe the fucking smile right off his pretty-boy face. "I'd give Steve's left nut to fuck her."

"Why mine?"

"Because, if I'm going to sleep with her, I kinda need both mine, dummy."

Jane crushed her cup in her hand. "Both of you need to quit acting like pigs." She slid off the hood and threw the cup at Soda's feet, muttering about how she didn't expect him to act like such a disrespectful shit the way Steve and her brother did.

I had to agree with her. It was no secret that Soda could say some foul things when he wanted to, but of all people, I thought he knew where to draw the line.

And maybe that was why I told him his girlfriend was a good-for-nothing slut and that he wouldn't know how to use his dick even if she came up and sat herself on it, so what where either of his nuts really worth?

* * *

><p>Jane came out of the bathroom wiping her hands on her skirt. "You know what really gets me?" she asked and sucked her tongue over her teeth. "That Janice just sits there and lets them all say whatever they want about your mom."<p>

I scratched the back of my neck, leaning up against the wall. "Might think they're joking," I said. "Maybe."

She raised an eyebrow at me and crossed her arms. "Nobody should be joking about anybody's mom." Her face clouded over. "Especially after the shape yours was in tonight, and if my brother was any kind of friend, he'd tell Steve and Soda where to go."

Admittedly, she had a point. Even if Soda and Steve had no idea what was going on, he did, and while I didn't expect him to say anything, I thought he would've had the decency—or even the common sense—to keep his mouth shut. But I guessed that some days a little respect was just too much to ask for from some people.

"I don't think your brother really knows what to do, Jane," I told her, looking over her shoulder. I could still see the car from where we were. It was an eyesore compared to the onslaught of freshly painted, hot-off-the-assembly-line cars with their new tires and engines that just purred.

She sighed because she knew I was right. If Two-Bit wasn't making a big joke out of everything, then he didn't know what to do with himself. It was his defense mechanism, what he did when a situation was too far out of his control. Of course he got angry, the same way all of us did, he just handled it better, or didn't let it show as much, probably because he felt he had to save face for Jane. At least me and Jan had the ability to be open with each other, but I figured it was really just some fluky family trait, since I'd never known a single Winston to be able to keep their mouth shut.

But I couldn't decide if we were better or worse off. Sure, we took things more seriously, but wasn't that just our problem? It was almost like we couldn't take a joke, or we didn't want to. I didn't know when things had gotten to that point, but I guessed that whatever sense of humor I had died along with the last piece of whatever was human inside Mack.

I spat off to the side, watching as my sister came toward us. She looked like she was about to rip me in half. It was like no matter what happened, I was the one that was always in the wrong, as far as she was concerned. Everybody had a goddamned scapegoat, didn't they?

"That was a really nasty thing to say, Dallas," she bit, giving my shoulder a shove and completely ignoring Jane. "You don't call your friend's girlfriend a good-for-nothing whore."

I put both my hands up to stop her from shoving at me. She'd never hit me with a closed fist, always all pushes and bumps. "And it's okay for him to talk about how he wants to fuck our mom, Janice?" I smacked her hands away when she went to push me again. "That's Mom, not some fucking slut for my buddies to shack up with for the night."

If it'd been Sylvia, I would've let them talk themselves blue, because Sylvia deserved half the things people called her. But our mom wasn't a two-timing tramp that slept with all of Tulsa.

"You have to take everything so seriously, don't you?" Janice shook her head at me and rolled her eyes, and she had me by the scruff of my coat, like she was about to haul me off somewhere. "I'm not surprised, really—everything always comes back to Mom."

"Shut the fuck up," I hissed, and I didn't think I'd ever wanted to hit her so badly. "You're so fucking stupid, Janice, you make me sick." I spat at her and yanked her hand off me. "Go back to Mom—at least she fucking wants you around."

Maybe it was that I spat at her, or maybe it was that I said the one thing she didn't want to hear, but I finally drove her to the point of hitting me with a closed fist. I'd been told there was a first time for everything.


	6. Chapter 6

**Disclaimer: **I don't own; I borrow with the odd exception.  
><strong>Author's Note: <strong>Flames are welcome. Apologies for how long it took to update. Take this chapter for what it is. As always, thanks to Cheap Indifference and everyone else who had any part in the writing of this chapter. Point out any and all mistakes. Remember that reviews would be oh so lovely.

* * *

><p><em>Feb. 1964<em>

"Siblings ain't always gonna get along, Dal," Buck was telling me.

I ground my teeth together and nodded, running my finger through a water ring on the top of the bar.

"I got an ungodly number of siblings runnin' all over God's half acre, an' I don't always like 'em all." He poured me two shots and shrugged. "I ain't gotta like 'em. Course I love 'em, but sometimes, I can't stand 'em worth a damn."

There were seven kids in Buck's family. I couldn't remember all their names for the fucking life of me. Knowing one Merrill was more than enough for me. He got his personality from his mom, which wasn't all bad, but she'd been fucked three ways to Sunday before she'd died. And Buck himself hadn't been right since.

He told me once that we all had pieces of crazy in us, some bigger pieces than others. It seemed like everybody I knew lost their mind at some point or another.

I picked up one of the shot glasses and pressed it against my temple to slow the throbbing. Buck sighed and reached into the icebox. He wrapped up a chunk of ice in a dirty cloth and handed it to me.

"You think Janice is crazy?" I asked, pressing the ice to my temple.

"Shoot." Buck helped himself to a shot and grimaced. "It don't take a genius to see it. And you're right behind her."

I glared at him through my good eye. The only reason he knew anything was because he was a family friend. I thought of him like a brother, and my mom sure liked it when he came around. The two of them could talk themselves hoarse, and that was how he'd come to know everything there was to be know about the Winstons.

"You think it runs in the family?"

He grinned, wiping his hands on his shirt. "Y'all don't get your crazy from your ma, sure as shit."

"Well la-di-fucking-da."

I twirled my finger in the air and threw back my shot. There wasn't enough alcohol in the world to take my edge off. I watched Buck pour me another couple shots before sitting across from me and sighing. He grabbed my chin and jerked it toward the light, shaking his head and looking as unimpressed and pissed off as I felt, the way he did every time I showed up looking like this. I didn't know why, but in all the years I'd known him, he had yet to get used to it.

"You kids sure do live dangerously nowadays." He laughed to himself and finally let me go. "Your kind is a dyin' breed, Dal."

"We seem pretty fuckin' alive to me," I said and swallowed back both the shots he'd poured me. I pressed the ice over my eye and managed to smirk at him. "But I'll take your word for it, pard."

"Now you're just makin' fun."

It was easy being around Buck. He was simple and underestimated, but he never went out of his way to try and prove himself to anybody. I had to respect a guy like that, who had taught me things about life I wouldn't have learned anywhere else. A lot of people took him for some drunk hillbilly with nothing but a couple horses to his name, and few knew different. But Buck was a businessman, first and foremost, and besides his get-rich-quick schemes, and his drinking problem, he knew exactly how to make everything seem like it was all going to be okay.

I heard someone come toppling through the front door. The screen slapped shut, and Buck grabbed a glass out from under the bar.

"Here comes the cavalry," he muttered, wiping it out. He filled the glass with ice and whiskey and set it down next to me.

There was only one person I knew that drank whiskey like that. I got up to leave but was shoved down in my seat. Buck even had a scowl on his face, and he wasn't one for getting mad.

"Your tab's in pretty rough shape, Janice," he said, and all I could see was her smiling at him from the corner of my eye like she thought she owned the whole goddamned world. "I expect it'll be gettin' paid real soon."

"Shoot, Buck," she started, "you let Dallas drink free."

"And we all know why that is."

"Because you're a pushover." She grabbed his hand and kissed the back of it. "And what's worse, you'll do anything for a good-looking girl."

The two of them were disgusting. It didn't look like he was taking the bait, but what she'd said was true; Buck would do anything for an honest-to-God good-looking broad.

"What the fuck do you want, Janice?" I grumbled and put my head in my hand.

"To apologize." She threw her arm around my shoulders and pulled me into her. "You know, to say sorry and all that."

She took the ice from me and tilted my head up toward the light the same way Buck had, looking at it like she was impressed with herself.

"Stop smiling," I told her, squirming away. The idea of her being so close made my skin crawl in every direction. "And shove your apology up your fucking ass."

"Calm down, sweetheart." She sucked back her drink and pursed her lips. "You're always so uptight. Have a drink."

Buck was starting to look mighty impatient with us. He refilled her glass and jabbed his finger into her shoulder. "That's about enough outta you," he said. "You done caused enough damage for one night."

She only laughed at that. "Well thanks, cowboy, but this here's _my_ brother." She paused to give him that I-art-Holier-than-thou smile of hers. "I got blood rights."

"You know what you ain't got?" I spat, ready to knock that look right off her face. "Consideration."

"For who?"

"Anybody."

She put her chin in her hand and her elbow on the bar. "And you know all about consideration, don't you?" She waved her hand and laughed at me—just one short, curt, bitter sound. "You're a kid, Dallas. Get off your high horse."

Buck cleared his throat. "I reserve the right to refuse you service, little miss—remember that."

She _tsk_ed at him and grabbed his hand again, running her thumb over his knuckles. "Let's go out this weekend, Buck," she suggested, as if she hadn't heard a damned thing he'd just said. "I'll show you a real good time. Promise."

"Sometimes you got about as much class as a third-rate prostitute, Janice, you know that?" I commented dryly, swiping her drink. "Does that run in the fucking family, too, or is that all you?"

That got Buck smiling. He took the make-shift icepack from me and patted Janice's cheek before putting it back in the icebox. The look on Janice's face was absolutely priceless, and what made it even better was the fact that she had absolutely nothing to say back. It was a sweet victory, even if it wouldn't last long.

"Anyways," I started as Buck handed me a lit smoke. "Have you seen much of Bobby lately?"

He nodded and scratched the back of his neck. "There is always somethin' to be heard," he said, more to himself than to me. He looked around and continued on. "Bobby was in here with some asshole named Archie."

Janice and I both looked at each other. I thought she might start crying and handed her my smoke.

"What did you hear?" she asked slowly, like maybe she really didn't want to know. "Did you get a last name?"

"Sure as shit," he said, scratching his jaw. "McCallister—Archie McCallister. Bobby made sure to introduce us real proper-like. And that wasn't all that didn't seem right to me." He pushed the ashtray at Janice and licked his lips. "Bobby was talkin' real loud, like he wanted me to hear what he was sayin'. I had no idea you'd killed somebody, Dallas."

I shrugged. "There's a lot shit you don't know, and with good reason."

"That's not exactly something you run around advertising," Janice added. "That's not something anybody needs to know—get me?"

He nodded and cleared away the empty glasses. "I'll see you 'round seven." He winked and took off into the back.

* * *

><p>"This is all your fault."<p>

Janice and I were laying in our bed, staring at the ceiling.

"If you hadn't gotten Archie's best friend killed—if you hadn't _killed _him—we'd still be in New York."

It was one of the many times where she was right. Archie's friend had died by my hand, and I'd never regretted it up until now. And still it wasn't regretting what I'd done so much as having not done it right. There were too many witnesses that had been left alive.

"I don't know who the hell you think you are, Dallas, but you are not taking me down with you."

"Shut the fuck up," I hissed, turning onto my side. "Just 'cause you didn't kill him don't mean you ain't every bit as involved as I am."

She looked like she was considering smothering me with her pillow. "I guess being there is crime enough, isn't it?" She scratched the side of her head and groaned.

"Like you said, I'm your kid brother, so this has everything to do with you."

"This isn't funny," she said, closing her eyes. "They know where we live. You think he isn't above going after Mom?"

I hadn't thought of it that way. The idea of anyone even thinking about putting their hands on our mom made my blood boil. She knew all about what I'd done and the idea of her getting hurt because of me made me absolutely sick.

"Archie ain't stupid, Jan," I told her, but I was really only trying to convince myself. "He ain't desperate enough to go after Mom."

"But what if he _gets_ that desperate?" she asked, sounding choked up.

"He won't."

As personal as this was, going after our family wasn't in Archie's repertoire. He would knock me and Janice off one by one, and we wouldn't even see it coming. What made Archie better than most everybody else was that he knew how to turn everything into a game, and everybody was playing, whether they knew it or not. And the thing about his games was that nobody ever made it out alive.

In New York, I'd watched Archie run his game on a poor kid named Vinny Kickman. He was just some scrawny little shit that ran with the gang because he didn't have anywhere else to go. After Archie was done with him, it was pretty obvious that coming out of his game alive was worse than being dead. Vinny had hung himself not long after.

I knew Janice was thinking about Vinny. He was part of Archie's legacy. Archie was known for the people he killed, and Janice was known for going steady with him, up until that point, because Vinny had been a real nice kid with a real nice kid brother. You just didn't go around killing nice kids; it went against some code, some rule someone had made up once.

"Let the dead bury the dead," Janice muttered, pushing my hair back.

"Then we might as well start buryin' ourselves."

She curled onto her side and gave me a watery look. I saw her for what she really was and what she'd always been—scared. But I'd never seen her cry and wasn't about to watch her now. People like my sister and me weren't supposed to be scared.

"Here." I reached into the nightstand and shoved this sad excuse for a switch at her. "I rolled one of them Fox boys for it."

She screwed her face up and swiped at her eyes, sniffling. "I can't carry that around," she said, but she flipped it open anyways and tried to get a feel for it. "This is ridiculous. Is this supposed to make me feel better?"

I shrugged, sliding off the bed. "If nothin' else, it's supposed to make you sleep at night."

"I've never used one of these before, you dipshit."

"I know," I said, motioning her over with a few fingers. "Come at me."

"Come at you?" she repeated, her eyes bugging. "I could kill you with this thing."

"That's the fucking point."

She got up off the bed hesitantly and gave me this look like she was extremely disturbed by the whole thing. Her hand was shaking and her face was white. "What if I cut you?" she asked, standing in front of me. "What if you bleed to death, right up here in our room?"

"Then I reckon you'll be mighty happy, won't you?" I shot, reaching into my boot. I snapped open my blade and stood there, waiting for her to do something. "You can finally step out of my shadow."

I saw the gears start to turn. She tightened her grip on the handle but still didn't know what to do.

"I get it," she said, throwing the blade onto the bed. "I get it."

"You don't get shit." I picked it up and shoved it at her again. "You don't know who the fuck Archie's got runnin' around out there, waitin' for you."

"You're paranoid."

"I'm _cautious._"

She moved so quickly that I didn't even see it. I felt the cold steel of the blade on my skin, nicking me enough to make me bleed a bit.

"You wanna know what you did wrong?" she asked, wiping the switchblade off on her shirt. "You let your guard down—you let me distract you. I told you to never let anyone distract you—ever."

I wiped my bloody hand on her face and snorted. At least I knew that if someone came after her, she had the capability to gut them. The only thing that worried me was whether or not she'd actually do it. I wasn't always going to be with her; the only person she could count on to keep her alive was herself.

She kissed the top of my head and took my blade from me. The cut wasn't very deep and it wasn't very long. I certainly wasn't bleeding to death anytime soon.

"Think we oughta teach Mom how to do this?" Janice asked, closing the nightstand. "Maybe she could fend off Mack."

"Evil doesn't die, Jan," I said, peeling my shirt off.

She curled up on the bed again, facing the wall. I sighed and stalked off to the bathroom.

I refused to watch her cry.


End file.
